Here's the thing......Looking at the forum i don't find any recent posts regarding getting live code onto a Pi.
Maybe it just me.?!?!
Is it possible to get some clear instructions on how to get live code on a raspberry pi 2 B and a raspberry Pi 3 B+

I have been around live code for a few years but only recently got into the Raspberry Pi so don't know much about it or Linux....yet!
Any help would be very gratefully received.
Cheers
gpjma

Well, I think the last version of Lc for Pi was LiveCode 7.0.4, which you can pick up at https://downloads.livecode.com/livecode/. I seem to remember a recent (within the last couple months) couple of posts about Pi and Lc...thinking...-hh had a real run going on it starting in 2014 and going right on until Feb of this year...he also ran this bit about window shapes...ah, here are the last most recent ones I was thinking of-

If you're new to RPi, what you'll soon discover is that they're not nearly as powerful as your laptop or desktop system.

And if you're new to LiveCode, you may not be familiar with how disk- and memory-intensive the LC IDE is.

So while it's possible to install LC v7.0.4, personally I never use it any more. Sooooooo much more enjoyable to treat the RPi the way I do my phones, tablets, and other ARM devices, as runtime environments, leaving me to develop on my PC.

Deploying to the RPi is dirt simple: copy the file there. You can use whatever means you normally trade files; I use Nextcloud, but dropbox, SFTP, HTTP, scp, rsync, etc.

FWIW I often make simple plugins for stuff I'm making for ARM so with one click in the IDE I save the stack file and copy it over to the device. This way I rarely need to make standalones, keeping the workflow fluid as I leave everything up while I'm working on my PC, copying to the device periodically to test.

Richard Gaskin
Community volunteer LiveCode Community LiaisonLiveCode development, training, and consulting services: Fourth World Systems:http://FourthWorld.comLiveCode User Group on Facebook :http://FaceBook.com/groups/LiveCodeUsers/

So while it's possible to install LC v7.0.4, personally I never use it any more. Sooooooo much more enjoyable to treat the RPi the way I do my phones, tablets, and other ARM devices, as runtime environments, leaving me to develop on my PC.

I'm curious about a few things with this arrangement myself (not a question for just you, Richard, but in general).

The reading I did seemed to indicate the 6.x series was much faster than 7.x (not just in the forums or on Rasbian, but from Lc itself in describing changes moving to 8.x).

I don't see an option in any of those versions to deploy to Pi in the standalone settings, what is the method for dev'ing on Pc and deploying to Pi (sketchy amounts of information found by me).

Other than that, I believe in one of the mentioned threads, I had put up a link to give you a way to test out Rasbian itself on a VM (OR even a full install on a hardrive if your feeling daring ) so you can get used to the environment. Certain Vm's for 'nix will allow emulation of almost any environment, but generally aren't as fast as Virtualbox. Quemu, for instance, after installing the proper architecture files should do a pretty good job of creating a machine and emulating almost any processor, although certainly not as easy for the novice as Virtualbox or Vmware.

So while it's possible to install LC v7.0.4, personally I never use it any more. Sooooooo much more enjoyable to treat the RPi the way I do my phones, tablets, and other ARM devices, as runtime environments, leaving me to develop on my PC.

I'm curious about a few things with this arrangement myself (not a question for just you, Richard, but in general).
1. The reading I did seemed to indicate the 6.x series was much faster than 7.x (not just in the forums or on Rasbian, but from Lc itself in describing changes moving to 8.x).

Both 6 and 7 are dead, as in no longer maintained. Since they have equal status in that regard, I suppose it doesn't matter much which one you use while we wait for a v10 build. Personally,I like to stay as current as possible, to minimize the differences when we do get a current supported build. But if v6 does what you need, enjoy it.

2. I don't see an option in any of those versions to deploy to Pi in the standalone settings, what is the method for dev'ing on Pc and deploying to Pi (sketchy amounts of information found by me).

The Standalone Builder included in the few LC versions that supported Linux/ARM offer a way to build for that platform. They don't also copy the file to the device. But that's easy enough for us to figure out.

Even simpler: make one standalone that presents a menu of any stack files in a folder. Then you only have one large app to copy, and from then on you have any stack files you want to run, which are much smaller than a standalone; they copy in a few seconds, and the smaller ones sometimes under a second. Such a fluid way to work.

Other than that, I believe in one of the mentioned threads, I had put up a link to give you a way to test out Rasbian itself on a VM (OR even a full install on a hardrive if your feeling daring ) so you can get used to the environment. Certain Vm's for 'nix will allow emulation of almost any environment, but generally aren't as fast as Virtualbox. Quemu, for instance, after installing the proper architecture files should do a pretty good job of creating a machine and emulating almost any processor, although certainly not as easy for the novice as Virtualbox or Vmware.

If VMs work well for what you need, enjoy 'em. VirtualBox is free as in freedom and beer, so the price is unbeatable.

Personally, I prefer to run in the real-world device when practical. And RPis are as cheap as RAM, so for my uses there's little benefit in simulating the environment over just diving into it.

Richard Gaskin
Community volunteer LiveCode Community LiaisonLiveCode development, training, and consulting services: Fourth World Systems:http://FourthWorld.comLiveCode User Group on Facebook :http://FaceBook.com/groups/LiveCodeUsers/

Um. I think we might have another of those 'mis-communication' things going.
Question 1. is posed as it is because -

6.x to 7.0.4 are the only IDEs available for Pi, so if you are going to develop on Pi, you would have to use them, regardless of whether they are supported or not, unless I missed some HUGE thing that says other wise (which is always possible).

The question is in relation to the Op's question about developing on Pi, not in relation to my own preferences in IDEs * for the Op, I tend to only work in the very old and decrepit IDE branches, by way of explanation.

The speed part of it is solely a comparison between the two series versions, my understanding from the reading I've done indicates 6.x is about 10x faster than 7.x, which was mentioned in a company article released about the upcoming 8.x series. I was looking to see if any of the regular Pi devs saw that the same way (people who might actually be using Pi to dev on).

The Standalone Builder included in the few LC versions that supported Linux/ARM offer a way to build for that platform.

So, if I am parsing this correctly, you would still need to use at least 6.x - 7.0.4 to build the standalone for Pi if you contrived to do it launcher style. However, if your planning to use a newer IDE to create the stacks, how does that work out? I thought stack format changes between large revisions required you to use the newer revision to create the launcher? That is something to think about for me, since I've only dealt with it in reverse (i.e., newer standalone launching older stack formats).

If VMs work well for what you need, enjoy 'em. VirtualBox is free as in freedom and beer, so the price is unbeatable.

Um. I don't know if you know what QEMU is, but the price is the same as Virt.box. So is KVM and a whole host of others. The differences between them are the level of complexity you can setup and emulate, Vbox being the least configurable, therefore the easiest to setup, and QEMU being the far more configurable, and therefore needing some experience and additional architectures to work with.

I use both extensively myself, however, I only mentioned Vms because GPJMA mentioned they only recently got into Pi's themselves. I tend to explore and do things in a Vm before I go to something that I *could* trash, costing money, it is always far easier to restore a vm than any hardware I've ever come across, regardless of its price.

I think we're on the same page. Clearly v6 or v7 must be used to build for RPi, because those are the only two versions for which Linux/ARM support has been made available. As Kierkegaard said, existence precedes essence.

There were a couple community efforts to make a Linux/ARM build for v8, but try as I might I was never able to get a reply from the developer said to be working on it, so I have to assume those fell by the wayside.

Kevin has noted an interest in having an official release of RPi, but not likely before v10, and no offical commitments have been made so please let's not get all pitchforks and torches if other priorities push it further out.

Indeed, anyone with the intersection of skills, time, and interest could make a Linux/ARM build from the Git source. But alas that intersection has been difficult to find.

So until someone runs/debugs that make file we're using the object code for v6 and v7. Both are unsupported, so each is as good as the other, in their own way.

Yes, older software of any kind tends to outperform newer software. Rarely works the other way, esp. when Unicode happens in between. We've seen it with Python, and PHP, and others, and LiveCode is no exception.

And like the others, the version _after_ the first Unicode version start to get some of that speed back. While some things in v8 and v9 are still slower than in v6 (Unicode is demanding, as are the bug fixes which require more stringent type and bounds checking), but some things are faster.

So a "10x speed difference" is no doubt true in some cases, esp. when compared with the first Unicode edition, v7, I doubt it holds up across a sufficiently broad set of test cases, and am fairly certain it wouldn't hold up for v8 or v9 across a much greater range of cases.

But for RPi specifically, until someone runs that make file the speed gains and bug fixes in v8 and v9 won't matter, so pick either v6 or v7 as you like and enjoy.

As for this:

However, if your planning to use a newer IDE to create the stacks, how does that work out?

The simplest way is to use the version on your desktop that matches the engine you're running on the RPi. I keep v7 Community installed just for that purpose.

But if you really want to use a v9 IDE to make stacks to run with a v6 or v7 engine, no worries: the IDE has a way to save a stack file as any older format used for the last decade or so. Just Save As with the desired format and you should be good to go.

Richard Gaskin
Community volunteer LiveCode Community LiaisonLiveCode development, training, and consulting services: Fourth World Systems:http://FourthWorld.comLiveCode User Group on Facebook :http://FaceBook.com/groups/LiveCodeUsers/

Ok, so, if your going to dev in the actual Pi environment, then 6.x to 7.0.4 for sure, unless you know how to yank and build the code from a later vers.

I did realize of course (but forgot to mention) the backwards saving stack format, however, the few times I've used it (from v9 to v5) it
..a.) didn't work out too great, and
..b.) if your going to save back to a feature set that existed that long ago, and have to have that older IDE to make the standalone to begin with, I tend to cut out the middleman so to speak, and just use the IDE thats meant to be used to do the task.

Disclaimer 1 - Of course, this is all my personal preference, YMMV.
Disclaimer 2 - the 10x speed quote was someone else's, I don't know the metrics behind the measurements.

OK. A lot of information there. Most of which is over my head or not really relevant. I am not new to live code but I am new to PI. I do understand the limitations but want to work on a small project at the PI due to its remote location and lack of wiFi etc.
I have already downloaded the Live Code &7.0.4 but having given made the installer executable I try to run it and all is well until I click on install when I am asked for the root password. Unless something has changed on the Pi 3 b+ it should be raspberry??? The installer does not accept that. I tried changing the password in Terminal (passwd command) but no luck.

Any ideas on the reason for this please? Your discussions were interesting and informative and I appreciate you taking the time to reply.
Cheers
gpjma

I don't have a Pi of any kind at the moment, but from what I was reading it looks like there are a couple of ways you can tackle this kind of issue.

One would be to install Lc only for yourself (if that option exists in the Pi installer, it exists everywhere else but I have no way to test it at the moment). This would be the easiest way to go if it exists, as it doesn't require anymore than your own password.

Install for you only...

If not, open a terminal wherever you have the Lc installer sitting, then launch the installer with the sudo command (which only asks for your account password if the user is part of the 'sudoers' group). This *should* give you sufficient priviledges to install Lc for everyone.

Lastly you might try 'sudo su' or just 'su' on the command line to escalate your priviledges, or if there is a login in screen before the session starts, type 'root' as the user and enter what you believe is the admin password. If you can't login, you don't have the admin password, so you'll have to reset it.

thanks for the straight forward reply.
I sometimes think that the forums stray very quickly from the initial question that may be from an absolute beginner. One of the reasons that i stay away mostly is that a question often ends up becoming a discussion between experts about stuff that is very intimidating to a beginner.

I'm not sure I understand. Doesn't the Pi installer have the install for you only option? Were some of my suggestions over your head? If so, what didn't come across clearly, I'll be happy to go into more detail.

I sure am not trying to be intimidating, if I came across that way I certainly apologize. As far as -

a question often ends up becoming a discussion between experts about stuff

I am hardly an expert, but there are always many ways to do the same thing. When you are presented with more than one way to accomplish something, I think it is a benefit, my way may not be your way, but if someone else has their way it may suit you better. Future readers will likely feel the same, one way will resonate, others might not.

Thanks for that.
Yes of course the installer does have the 'only you' option. ASI have livecode installed elsewhere and never us that option it didnt occur to me. I have mow installed live coed on the Raspberry pi and although it starts up OK it wont run on my project's small Ras.Pi display.
Just out of interest why does the installer not accept the admin password that I have set up or, indeed the original default? If you have an answer i would be grateful. It may be needed at some other time.
Thanks and real appreciation for the help,

Just out of interest why does the installer not accept the admin password that I have set up or, indeed the original default?

This may be a little tougher to find out, since there are variables I'm not sure about on Rasbian, so the references I put here will be as they pertain to Linux in general.

When you launch the installer, and it asks for the administrator privileges, it is looking for the same password you would use as 'sudo', so the account your logged into needs to be part of the 'sudoers' group. The easiest way to find out if your account is part of the sudoers group is to open a terminal, and type in something like

If the message is either, then you -
...don't have the correct password for the account or
...you have made a typo or
...you need to add the account to the sudoers group.

As for the administrator account, the easiest way to install Lc with that is to either login as the admin/root account, and then launch the installer (which will not prompt for a password at that point, since you are logged in as root), or open a terminal and type

and the password for root, then launch the installer from the command line. To find out if you have the correct password for the admin account, just opening the terminal and typing su is the easiest way to find out if you have the correct admin/root password.